How it all began according to Marathon J

The afternoon was pleasant enough, business meeting which included a couple of bottles of vino rouge, just to help with client relations and pre Christmas cheer. Once lunch and the red wine was finished I said goodbye to my client and noticed Mr T, Mr B and several others congregating at the bar, not wanting to be anti-social particularly, as I was by this stage full of Christmas cheer, I joined them for perhaps one or two glasses more. During the third or fourth glass, Mr T made some claims of running a half in 1 hr 40Min easily and “Jase” backed him by saying he could probably run that tomorrow! Mr T agreed, piece of cake…..probably. At that point Mr B, I think, suggested something about us jointly entering a team, where upon my good friend and colleague Nigel flatly pulled out but importantly did not discourage me, something that would come back and bite him in his appraisal in the following month! He did say he would cheer us all on. Whilst at this point I was seriously under the influence, I did have sufficient mental capacity to caveat my entry based on doctors approval, which me being the oldest and also most in need of reconstruction, slipped disc’s and missing cartilage in both knees I felt sure would get me out of this stupid idea. At some point after that, approximately 9pm, I decided it was time to start my marathon training and walk home, circa 2 miles, helped by a greasy burger for the first half mile, the type you only eat drunk, and then a Chinese for the remaining distance, I arrived home about 1am, go figure!

The next couple of days a raft of emails hit me, darn it these boys are serious! So I played my joker in true “It’s a knockout” style, (yes I am that old) and made an appointment with my doctor, 5pm the same day. The doctor was not very sympathetic, having spent the day looking at sick people he had little time for me, “Brilliant idea” he declared adding he might to it too. I made him check my vital sign’s, that was not particularly helpful either, my blood pressure was excellent for a man of my age, whatever that means, then he asked me to blow in a toilet roll and that gave him some other good news, I’ve no idea what, and finally he weighed me and apparently I was as fat as I was 4 years ago. So much for much for my joker! This final advice was to get a training plan and some good shoes….thanks doc.

As I suspected my first run was painful, my knees hurt for a couple of days as did my back, I swapped my mid week runs for the pool or cross trainer which helps take the load off but keeps the cardio up. I thought to myself this is mad, I’m putting myself through pain for a silly run in May. About to pull out I read Mr B’s emails. His pain and suffering was beyond compare, shin splints just walking, but instead of stopping, like I would, he pops some pain killers and carries on in agony and then to cool down watches a move at Cineworld with ice packs on his legs. His emails over the following weeks became more and more inspirational, determined beyond reason, coping with pain and still up for the challenge. I realised I could not pull out. I started to think about how we could create some benefit from this torture. Mr B, Mr T and Mr J were no longer they were formerly Mr’s and now evolving into Marathon B, Marathon T and Marathon J…….

…..the story continues…..